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October 2, 2005

G162: Red Sox 10, Yankees 1

IN!

Red Sox at White Sox, Tuesday 4pmYankees at Angels, Tuesday, 8pm

Padres at Cardinals, Tuesday 1pmAstros at Atanta, Wednesday, 4pm

P.S. After the final out, NESN did not go to commercial, so my cable package kept showing the broadcast. I got to see more than 30 minutes of lockerroom celebration and interviews. At one point, I ran and got my digital camera and took some pictures of my TV.

At the end of this interview, Damon is told that he's wearing a Houston Astros Division Series cap. How that got into the Red Sox clubhouse is anyone's guess.ALDS Game 1 starter Matt Clement.Tito gets soaked by Schilling.Tony Graffanino.Other great sights: Kevin Millar wearing his goggles on the bench during the ninth inning, Gabe Kapler on crutches in the middle of the clubhouse and Hanley Ramirez going wild, spraying anyone and everyone. From MLB's main page:

18 comments:

Not only IN, but well in. The Sox are a better team than the team that accumulated 95 wins over the season, while both the Yankees and the ChiSox are worse than their records. Let's see Aaron Small and Chacon keep their flukey magic going against the Angels. I'm laying my money on another Sox-"LA of A" ALCS.

Or something like that: “He’s always battling to get good!” Francona on Schilling, in a champagne soaked locker room to NESN’s Eric Freid

I guess my prediction came in pretty much on the money (Schilling 7 Ip, 5r or less allowed, and a big win) (from the post,Yankees 8 Red Sox 4) so we didn’t really have to worry about Cleveland, since Schilling went 6 and only gave up one run. I’ll take that any day.

I’ve been telling people that Schill will contribute big down the stretch all season and I believe he already has. That win in New York, his bullpen work, I think his contributions have already been under-rated. Schilling’s bullpen work was crucial to the Sox backing into the playoffs. Despite his less than stellar stats out the pen, where would we be if he hadn’t stepped up in that situation. Up shit creek without a paddle, is my guess. I’m no big Schilling fan, I just admire his intensity and his professionalism between the lines. And his ability to contribute when it counts.

Yeah, we backed into the playoffs, and thank you Cleveland for running out of gas and collapsing. We had a 4 game lead, for christsakes, and we went 16 & 12 for September while the Yanks went 19 & 7. It was ours for the taking without any eleventh hour heroics or drama. Our Red Sox did not get the job done and the Yankees did. Hats off to the Yanks and Torre, and Joe, shed all the tears you wish, you earned them all.

I continue to be surprised by the second guessing of individual plays or choices during a game, such as the comment made yesterday about the fastball Wake threw to Scheff that Scheff hit for a HR. You might as well 2nd guess any random pitch as that one. “Why, if Wake hadn’t thrown that ball on the 0 – 0 count in the ? inning then the whole game would have turned out different.” It makes as much sense. Our own lives teach us that we can’t second guess our life choices, only regret them, or thank our lucky stars. Besides, Wake was only second guessed on that pitch because of the home run: if Scheff had struck-out of even fouled it off, no mention of it being a bad choice. Wake did not place the pitch where he wanted it, that was the problem, not the choice of pitch. Wake’s fast ball is a change of pace pitch and mixes up pitch speed much like a speed-baller uses a change-up.

On NESN, Remy recounted a conversation with Francona, today, about how well the manager slept on Saturday night. Tito said that he had dreamed of basketball lay-ups and that he couldn’t make them and that he woke up around 3am. Any Freudians out there?

Looks like it will be Clement, Wells, Wake, and Schilling going up against the White Sox. What will win this series, pitching or hitting? Conventional wisdom states that pitching wins in the post-season. If you are believer in conventional wisdom, then our Red Sox are in trouble.

I enjoyed the rant about Fox TV. They get all A’s from me, though, for their insightful coverage: A, for Abysmal, A, for Abominable, and A, for Atrocious.

It’s been my pleasure to enjoy the Sox NESN coverage this season. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. They have put together the best pre-game and post-game coverage I’ve ever seen. They have put together a wonderful team of personalities, very entertaining. A collective groan goes out all over New England whenever ESPN or FOX takes over.

No, John, the fastball to Schefield should be second-guessed, just like Bill Lee's infamous "Leephus" to Tony Perez in Game 7 of the '75 Series. Both were bad gambles, and would still have been bad gambles even if they had worked. Schefield is a Fast-ball Shark and too good to fool with a batting practice pitch, just like Perez was a famous off-speed killer (I was at that game, and actually had time to yell "Oh no!" while Lee's lob was in the air and I saw Perez had it tracked). Wake has his best luck using that slow-fast pitch on Punch and Judy hitters when the options are a base on balls or a single. Why risk a homer with two out and a man on in the first of a crucial game? Bad gamble. TERRIBLE gamble.

One criticizes mistakes so lessons are learned. I don't want to see Wake throw that pitch to Konerko...and I bet he won't.

Winning 95 games is no fluke, bad bullpen and sketchy pitching or no. Tied for the AL East, bestowed the WC by default. Three years in a row we've gotten to watch the Sox in October now--that's a new franchise record, I think.

Backed? Backed?! We lost to NY by one in the season series and tied their record. If Cleveland hadn't laid down and died, there'd be a one-game playoff at Yankee stadium! Thank goodness there isn't, though.

I pumped my fist SO HARD after Manny Ramirez put away that game. I was friggin' so excited (the Cleveland game hadn't ended yet). Goddamn, take it to the White Sox.

When people (and media) look at the Sox's season ERA, they are seeing the crappy performances of Blaine Neal, Cla Meredith, Scott Cassidy, Mike Remlinger, Abe Alvarez, Matt Mantei, etc. -- guys that are no longer on the team, in other words.

Even so, the team ERA is pretty interesting -- Sox are 11th (or 4th-worst). I can't imagine it's ever happened before that a team with such a huge problem makes the playoffs. But yeah, it doesn't speak to them being terrible, as the media has been saying -- it speaks to the adversity they've somehow managed to deal with this season.

was that fun or what? totally made up for yesterdays surreal/annoying yankees celebration. i only found out during the hour before the show of the possibility of the yankees taking the AL east crown. i had thought 2 out of 3 would send us to new york no matter what the indians did. it was like it was sprung on us at the last second. but who cares now, we're in!!

i love how right after the game ended, not only was the (nesn) coverage on and uninterrupted, but there was no commentary either. that was really great. so often (especially on fox and espn) they *cannot* stop talking for the life of them. but here, we had silence and just the sounds of victory to soak in. so awesome! i love seeing that clubhouse covered in plastic ;D that was funny when they were talking to johnny...i think he was just as surprised he was wearing an astros hat as we were. crazy guy :)

ps. i loved reading the fox rants on here too. i thought i was the only one going insane at their complete incompetence- consistent incompetence. i'm glad alot of people have complained about this. cause they truly do not know what the hell they are doing on that network and it's nice to know they aren't getting away with it.

While the BoSox were beating the Bronx Bombers (to equal the Yuckees record I hasten to add) Rem Dawg and Orsillo did a great job of calling and enjoying the game - it is a shame that we will not get to listen to them during the post season games.

When people (and media) look at the Sox's season ERA, they are seeing the crappy performances ...

The ERA info is an interesting insight - does anyone have the hitting info as well? I think Bosox hitting closes the gap, if I recall correctly.

I am responding to the "encouragement" here. I am at least mindful that last year we were struggling during the post-season too. That worked out so perhaps this pitching crisis will too. I still reserve the right to ask "What was Tito thinking?" His approach to nurturing the players' and team's psyche drives me batty - I like Earl Weavers approach using statistics - "Git er done". To Tito's credit - he is the only Boston Coach to win the WS in now 87 years!

Please don't take this the wrong way, because my Manny-bashing days are over forever after his contributions this season, but his play on Jeter (a game-changer, in my view) yesterday exemplifies what can be sooo frustrating about our Unique One in left field, and that is that he, unlike previous erratic left-fielders like Rice and Greenwell, obviously has the arm, ability and instincts to be a real asset in the field, yet just doesn't always seem to have his head in the game sufficiently to do so reliably. My Dad says watching Ted williams in the field was often like this, and accounted for some of his bad relations with fans and press. Manny's last two weeks in left were just as superior as his previous three weeks had been frightening. If there are really two Mannys, I'm praying the focused fielding one is the one that plays in Chicago, because I have a feeling he could make a definitive difference.

By the way, I actually broke my TV this morning (my wife isn't speaking to me ) by throwing a coffee cup at the screen when that ass Woody Paige on "Cold Pizza" said, "See? I told you the Yankees would finish ahead of the Sox." "Finish ahead"...with the exact same W-L record! I know, I know...it doesn't really matter and I should let it go...but it DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!